After Terrifying Iran, Stuxnet Attacks Kazakhstan and Russia

Kaspersky Lab has reported that Iran has witnessed a decrease in the number of hosts infected with Stuxnet since July 2010. But it spiked in Kazakhstan and Russia in September 2010.

The Stuxnet industrial espionage worm was shown a lot in the news. Many have considered it as the most sophisticated malware of all times whose purpose is still under the speculation of people.

Kaspersky released statistics on September 25, 2010 stating that the number of Stuxnet infections have been falling since July 2010. It has dropped by 75% over the past three months, placing the country at the fifth position.

But the danger has not vanished as the same data depicts a huge increase of 1711% Stuxnet infections in Kazakhstan. This percentage has pushed the country to third position after India and Indonesia. Besides, Russia is now at the fourth position with a significant rise of 308%. Bangladesh witnessed an increase of 370% against the level of August 2010, but the overall figure does not qualify it to be among the top five.

According to the security experts, Iran managed to clean many infected systems, significantly cutting its infection rate. If this trend sustains, Iran will be no more the center of the epidemic. Similarly, Indonesia has been successful in preventing the spread of Stuxnet. On the other hand, India is more or less at the same level which is encouraging as there has been no increase in the epidemic.

However, this doesn't apply to Russia and Kazakhstan. Currently, these two countries seem to be the most vulnerable where the epidemic has started to reach a peak. But it is clear that the worm did not originate from these territories as Stuxnet is new to these countries.

Unfortunately, it has been observed by the researchers that Stuxnet gets detected only when it reaches a peak. Therefore, it is extremely difficult to determine the exact origin of this infection.

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» SPAMfighter News - 10/7/2010